2026 Fantasy Baseball ADP Guide: Draft Strategy (101-150)

Fantasy leagues can be lost in the top 100. Perhaps a player that the industry was high on didn’t quite have that breakout season, or a highly drafted pitcher went under the knife. It happens. But the later into drafts you get, if you can identify underrated talent, that’s where leagues are won.

In this range, between picks 101-150, it’s likely that some of these players will ascend into the top 50 – while others could land outside of the top 250. It’s a high variance range. In this piece, we’ll analyze the draft stock of five players and investigate whether they are worth buying at their current price, by average draft position.

This list, curated by the National Fantasy Baseball Championship, allows us to see not only where players are typically being drafted, but trends on who is moving up or down boards in early drafts. Some of the industry’s best and brightest are drafting in high-stakes competitions right now and we’ll analyze their decisions.

You’ll see that my overarching strategy in this range is to get arms, so I aim to load up on offense in the top 100. Here are five players going, on average, between picks 101-150 that are worthy of a deeper dive:

Player	ADP	2025 Stats
Ceddanne Rafaela	124	.249/.295/.414, 16 HR, 20 SB
Chase Burns	127	4.57 ERA, 2.65 FIP, 13.92 K/9, 3.32 BB/9
Tyler Glasnow	130	3.19 ERA, 3.76 FIP, 10.56 K/9, 4.28 BB/9
Daniel Palencia	140	2.91 ERA, 3.08 FIP, 10.42 K/9, 2.73 BB/9
Jakob Marsee	145	.292/.363/.478, 5 HR, 14 SB

Ceddanne Rafaela – Will He Hit Enough?

At pick 124, I am out on Ceddanne Rafaela. The FanGraphs auction calculator (using Steamer projections) has him as the 33rd ranked outfielder (OF33), just for stolen base potential. While stolen bases are a hot commodity, I’d rather try to get mine from a player with a little more upside than Rafaela.

In Rafaela’s Statcast profile, there’s not a lot of offensive skills that even ranked as league average last year. His barrel rate (9.2%) and strikeout rate (19.9%) were fine, but he doesn’t swing the bat hard, doesn’t hit the ball hard consistently, and has an over-aggressive approach.

Rafaela’s elite center field defense should keep him on the field if he’s passable offensively. The upside here is that he compiles enough counting stats over 600+ plate appearances to be decent. OOPSY projects Rafaela for 609 PA and has him slashing .258/.300/.405 with 18 homers and 23 steals. Not a bad line, but I don’t think there’s a ceiling much higher than this. I think you could find similar value a bit later in drafts.

Chase Burns – Fun and Frisky Flamethrower

A big reason why I’m interested in shopping for pitching in this range is to get some shares of these five young, exciting starters: Chase Burns, Nolan McLean, Jacob Misiorowski, Trey Yesavage, and Cam Schlittler. All five are ascending arms that could be had at a discount, because they’re unproven. It’s likely that at least a couple of these hurlers are talked about as potential SP1s for 2027 drafts.

While I have general interest in each of them, Burns’ ravaging of the minor leagues in less than one season has me eager to see what’s next. The second-overall pick of the 2024 draft runs his fastball up into the high-90s with ease and has a wipeout slider that grades as an excellent pitch, via Stuff+ (127). He may not have been a strong performer by ERA last season, but the stellar FIP and xFIP (2.58) tells us that this guy has the ceiling of an ace.

The auction calculator forecasts Burns to provide the most value of any of those previously listed young arms – with the fewest projected innings (132). If Burns can stay healthy and push towards 160 innings, we could be looking at a top 20 starter. I would take him a round or two ahead of where he’s currently going.

Tyler Glasnow – Let Him Fall into Your Lap

Tyler Glasnow is a frustrating pitcher to own – and it appears that the market has had enough of his yearly trips to the injured list. Glasnow has never thrown 150 innings in his ten-year career. His career-best innings total came in 2024, when he threw 134 frames. Last season, Glasnow made it through just 90.1 regular season innings.

When Glasnow is on the mound, he’s a quality arm pitching for baseball’s best team. He’ll be excellent for accumulating wins and strikeouts, while keeping your ratios in good shape. Even though Glasnow has struggled with command throughout his career, he usually maintains a WHIP between 0.90-1.10.

A reason why Glasnow is likely going lower in NFBC drafts is because these leagues are 12 or 15 teams in size with no IL slot. If you play in a 10- or 12-team league with ample IL slot availability, Glasnow is worth drafting inside of the top 100. He’s an established, effective pitcher on a great team that will outperform his draft value on a per-start basis.

Daniel Palencia – Ascending Young Closer

Currently being drafted as RP16, I like Daniel Palencia to return, if not exceed value at this spot. After prying the closer role away from Ryan Pressly and Porter Hodge early in the 2025 season, Palencia nailed down 22 saves in what was his first full big-league season. With little competition for the role this coming season, Palencia should be a legit fantasy closer on a good team.

Palencia gasses the fastball up into the triple digits on the regular with good command. He relies on the fastball quite heavily, throwing it 72% of the time, while likely made him a bit predictable and led to a rough 48.8% hard-hit rate. He showed a quality slider (131 Stuff+) and splitter (125) last season, so if he can work to command those offerings better, he may have greater success.

Steamer and OOPSY both project Palencia for a 30-save season, but OOPSY is more bullish on his run-prevention abilities. OOPSY projects Palencia for a 3.11 ERA with a 29% strikeout rate, while Steamer forecasts a 3.62 ERA with a 26.5% K-rate. Taking his worse projection (Steamer), the FanGraphs auction calculator projects Palencia as the RP15. I think you’re drafting Palencia at his relative floor here and there could be a higher ceiling.

Jakob Marsee – Projected as One Category Contributor

Jakob Marsee had a heck of a debut as a major leaguer. He was so exciting that he’s garnering attention as a top 150 pick after accumulating less than 250 plate appearances. Marsee showed some potential to contribute in all five roto categories, but the projections have their doubts.

Unlike Rafaela, Marsee actually has a pretty refined approach. There’s not a lot of chase or swing-and-miss in his game, and he strikes out and walks at rates better than average. His .275 xBA would also seem to indicate that the batting average upside he showed last year had some merit. He didn’t show a propensity to hit the ball or swing the bat harder than below league average, however.

At his current draft position, Marsee is going as the OF34. If he could produce in a similar fashion to last season, he’d be well worth the investment. The problem is that the projections don’t believe in his ability to hit for average, as Steamer (.232) and OOPSY (.223) outputs indicate.

If we even take his high batting average projection, Steamer views Marsee as the OF41. Not a terrible investment, but I think I’d prefer to pass on Marsee and take some of the other bats projected similarly that are going rounds later.